Patient 8

covered, silicone gel implants using a multiplane/dual plane technique. This patient has an extreme tubular breast deformity. Her breast tissue is very dense and has an extremely small footprint on her chest wall – note her areolae are as wide as her breasts. Standard techniques and round implants will cause a breast on a breast “double bubble” deformity.

The breast tissue needs to be expanded to cover as much of the implant as possible to avoid the double bubble. To do this it is necessary to release the breast tissue away from the muscle so the back surface of the breast can be incised in various directions. Because these incisions are inside the body they are not visible. Then a separate dual plane pocket where the top of the implant is covered by the muscle and the bottom is in front of the muscle is created. This allows the breast implant to push against the incised breast tissue and expand it. It is not a precise analogy but if you think of how the surface area of a mango expands after it has been incised in a cube pattern and then pushed out it may help to understand how the implant expands the surface area of the breast.

Patients with this degree of tubular breast deformity cannot achieve the same result as a patients with normally shaped breasts but very substantial improvement is possible with the correct operative plan and skilled surgery.

Patients with tubular breasts may be entitlted to Medicare and private health fund rebates.